Bloody Angels review

A belated release for this offbeat Scandinavian thriller (first released in '98), in which Oslo detective Nicholas (Reidar Sorensen) arrives in a remote Norwegian town to investigate the rape and murder of a young girl with Down's syndrome.

The police have two suspects, but of these brothers, one has been found drowned and the other has mysteriously disappeared. The vengeful locals are claiming that the first brother's killing was carried out by "angels" and are now making life a misery for 12-year-old Niklas (Gaute Skjegstad), the youngest sibling in the scapegoated family.

Bloody Angels is an unsettling blend of Twin Peaks and Insomnia, mixing droll social satire with awkward questions about a community's desire for vengeance.

Expertly shot in chilly, desaturated tones, it's been labelled a "post-Western" by its own director, presumably for the way it intelligently blurs the boundaries between good and evil.